William Sommerwerck wrote:

That's not even close to the Best Obstructionist Story Ever.
That's this ( sorry, long URL ):


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...v=glance&n=130

But this isn't (exactly) the same sort of obstruction. It was the denial of
his achivement -- not quite the same thing as blocking other people's
researdch.


Dunno - I see a lot of similarity. No telling how
many people died, nor how much economic cost was borne
because of the withholding of the chronometer.

Point is, the process in question involves some
person or small group of people who , through perverse
incentives and personality disorder, hold up things.

In the xample of Mr Coe's book, one sufficiently
hardheaded person could have simply routed around the
guy - which is what Harrison ultimately did, through
appeal to the King.



Nuh uh. Those guys are *engineers*. There's a very real difference:


I respectfully disagree.



They're pretty hackerish. And not necessarily in a good way...
It's more a caricature of engineering, really.


In science, you failed when it blows up when it's not s'posed to.


That's engineering, not science!



Not so much! In engineering, you just write papers about it,
as in Galloping Gertie. Failures are a sort of
"opportunity wearing work clothes"...

In science, the whole theory goes over the side.... it's
a harsh muse.

--
Les Cargill